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Contributors to the Thurston Moore Book

For “We Sing A New Language: The Oral Discography Of Thurston Moore”, I wanted to use the experiences and perspectives of the people who have played on the numerous records he’s featured on outside of Sonic Youth, to paint a picture of his development and his interests in music across the years. It’s notable how much of his energies, very early on, were on gaining this wider experience while – since the mid-Nineties – there’s a veritable explosion of effort devoted to other scenes which then feeds back into Sonic Youth in the form of the SYR records, releases with Mats Gustafsson, the presence of Borbetomagus on the Murray Street album, their choices of support acts when touring. There’s even a specific character to Moore’s efforts during Sonic Youth’s peak of commercial success in the early-to-mid-Nineties with Moore evangelising and paying tribute to the underground bands who he felt was important – so much of that era is spend on covers and tributes. It’s that kind of pattern that speaking to the people involved was able to tease out.

The book includes a comprehensive Contributors section in which each of the 170 people involved summarises their personal creative urges and expressions – the hope being that it gives the reader a sense of who they’re speaking to and a starting point for further exploration. Frankly, if you enjoy the work of Thurston Moore then there are a lot of people in here worth finding!